Heroin – a yearn for the worse

Friday

Feb 28, 2014 at 2:16 PMFeb 28, 2014 at 2:38 PM

Drug overdoses now kill more Americans than car crashes. That Centers for Disease Control statistic has hit home recently as the number of suspected heroin overdose deaths in Massachusetts surged over the past four months.

Gerry Tuoti Wicked Local Newsbank Editor

Drug overdoses now kill more Americans than car crashes.

That Centers for Disease Control statistic has hit home recently as the number of suspected heroin overdose deaths in Massachusetts surged over the past four months.

At least 185 Bay State residents have died from heroin overdoses in the past four months, according to data the Massachusetts State Police recently released. And those figures exclude Boston, Springfield and Worcester, the state’s three largest cities. Nationally, drug overdoses kill more than 36,000 a year.

“We see better than a person a week in Norfolk County, and we don’t have a lot of large urban areas,” Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey said. “I don’t think any community in Norfolk County has been immune. There are no boundaries. It covers all communities, all ethnicities and all socio-economic groups. There are good kids from good families.”

There were 60 reported heroin overdose deaths in Norfolk county last year, and 12 so far in 2014.

State and federal officials, including R. Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the National Office of Drug Control Policy, recently visited Taunton to meet with local officials and other stakeholders. That city has seen six fatal heroin overdoses and more than 70 nonfatal overdoses since Jan. 1.

“Heroin and prescription drug addiction is an equal opportunity destroyer of lives,” said U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who organized the Taunton forum. “It breaks apart families. It buries hope and happiness under a mountain of despair. The meteoric rise in addiction to heroin and prescription drugs over the past decade is catastrophic, and the magnitude of resulting harm our communities have seen is nothing short of an epidemic.”

Officials at the forum called for greater resources for treatment, and the state firefighters union announced a plan to carry the drug naloxone, which can reverse the effects of an overdose, on all fire engines.

Many health professionals and law enforcement officials say opiate addicts often start with prescription painkillers, then move to cheaper, more potent heroin.

“Percocet can go for $30 on the street for one pill,” Morrissey said. “Heroin can be as a low as $3 a bag.”

Dr. Joseph Shrand, medical director at the Brockton-based CASTLE treatment program, said he has seen heroin addicts as young as 13 or 14.

“Most of the kids who are using Percocet and heroin who come in to see us are not getting high from heroin anymore,” Shrand said. “They’re using it so they don’t go into withdrawal.”

State Police spokesman David Procopio said there has recently been a particularly high concentration of fatal overdoses in Southeastern Massachusetts, the Merrimack Valley and Western Massachusetts.

Since the State Police switched to a new tracking system on Nov. 1, there have been 34 reported overdose deaths in Bristol County; two in Berkshire; nine on the Cape and Islands; 22 in Essex County; 12 in Hampden, excluding Spingfield; 19 in Hampshire and Franklin counties; 30 in Middlesex; 15 in Norfolk County; 20 in Plymouth County; 10 in Suffolk, excluding Boston; and 12 in Worcester County, excluding the city of Worcester.

“Unfortunately, because of the new system, I cannot at this time provide a similar time period preceding these last four months for comparison purposes,” Procopio said. “Our experience and accumulated knowledge, however, indicates that these numbers absolutely represent an increased rate of fatal heroin overdoses.”

The State Police, he said, do not track deaths in the state’s three largest cities, as those municipal police forces lead investigations into local deaths.

In Essex County, District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett has called for legislation that would require hospitals to report basic data, such as the age and gender, of all overdose victims.

“Without hard, real-time numbers of opiate-related drug overdoses we will end up spending and wasting more money and time to stop this epidemic, neither of which we can afford to waste,” he said in previous testimony in support of such legislation.

Essex County had 66 fatal heroin overdoses in 2013.

The city of Worcester has had two suspected overdose deaths since Jan. 1, and 19 in all of 2013, although just two have been officially confirmed by the state medical examiner’s office, according to the Worcester County DA’s office. Worcester County has had four suspected overdose deaths in 2014 and 23 last year. The figures are unofficial, the office said.

Worcester County District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. recalled a particularly deadly spell in late 2013.

“It seemed like we were having at least one overdose death a week for eight weeks,” Early said.

In addition to education and prevention programs, he said, his office is working to steer addicts toward appropriate treatment programs.

“We’re also aggressively trying to tailor the dispositions we have on cases to the needs of the addict, with bottom line being public safety,” Early said. “We try to make treatment the focus. But if they’re selling heroin, we want them off the street.”

Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz also said the approach must be multifaceted, including steering addicts into treatment.

“If you’re robbing stores, stealing from cars, you have to be held accountable for those actions,” Cruz said. “It’s a delicate balance. You have to get to them before they abuse.”

Like several other DA’s Cruz said his office has instituted a prescription drug take-back program, in which people can drop their leftover prescription pills in a secure box at their local police station, no questions asked.

The State Police have speculated that there could be a particularly potent strain of heroin flooding the streets, or that the heroin may be cut with a synthetic substance, such as Fentanyl.

“There’s no such thing as a good batch of heroin,” said Drug Enforcement Agnecy special agent and spokesman Anthony Pettigrew said. “It’s all poison, basically. When you’re using heroin, it’s like playing Russian roulette.”

Gerry Tuoti is the Regional Newsbank editor for GateHouse Media New England. Email him at gtuoti@tauntongazette.com or call him at 508-967-3137.

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